Unsurprising I suppose

... but still something to be concerned about.

Robert Mugabe's systematic destruction of his own nation has caused a refugee crisis in neigboring countries.

The effects of Robert Mugabe's regime are forcing thousands of people to seek sanctuary in neighbouring countries - a situation that is threatening to destabalise the whole region, writes Tim Butcher in Gabrone.

Less than a mile from the mirror-panelled banks and high-rise offices of Botswana's richest firms, penniless Zimbabweans gather on dusty street corners begging for work.

Unregistered, unkempt and unlawful in a foreign land, the desperate men whisper "Piece work, piece work" sotto voce, meaning "odd job" to any passer-by.

If you are brave enough to stop your car at what appears to be an empty junction, a mini-stampede erupts as Zimbabweans surge towards the vehicle, hands flapping for car door handles in an unseemly scrum to be first in line.

Malnourished and haggard, the men try anything to convince would-be employers. Some brandish O-level certificates as proof that they passed through Zimbabwe's once respected but now barely functioning education system.

Others show references from employers back in Zimbabwe long closed down or even character references from the country's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, to indicate that they are not tainted by association with President Robert Mugabe's regime.

All the documents have to be retrieved from a carefully secreted position - tucked in a sock or hidden behind a belt. To be found with such paperwork by the police is grounds for the bearer to be kicked out of Botswana as an illegal.

"I have been coming across the border regularly for two years now," said 24-year-old Mqondisi from Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo.

"We get a few days' permission to be here, but we all stay to look for work because a little bit of money here in Botswana is more than we can hope for in Zimbabwe. The police catch us and stick us in the trucks that take us back over the border, but after a few days we come back."

There's much more and I encourage you to read the whole thing. Mugabe's reign of terror is a threat not just to his own nation, but to those surrounding him as well. His destruction of his own nation threatens to destabalize the economy of the entire region.

All this happens, and the world does nothing but complain from a distance. (That's not entirely true. In some instances impotent wailing would actually be an improvement. The French, for one, almost seem to be on his side sometimes. "There's nothing we can do about it," says the world. "Zimbabwe is a sovreign nation and Mugabe is it's elected leader." (As if there was anything legitimate about the last election.)

This is why I've come to believe that our current notion of sovreignty is hopelessly outdated. Sovreignty is something to be earned, not granted simply because someone can seize power.

Mugabe hasn't earned it.